ANY OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR(S) AND NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS & SOCIAL SCIENCES, SMU

A Code of Conduct for Indonesia: Problems and Perspectives

Riccardo Pelizzo, Bernice Ang October 2006

Paper No. 11-2006

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A Code of Conduct for Indonesia: problems and perspectives By

Riccardo Pelizzo (in collaboration with Bernice Ang)

Introduction The purpose of the present paper is fairly straightforward. We want to show that

institutional reforms, such as the adoption of a conduct code, represent a necessary albeit

insufficient condition to curb corruption and promote good governance. As several

scholars have pointed out the success of institutional reform in general and the success of

codes of conduct in particular depends, among other things, on ideational conditions.

With regard to codes of conduct, parliamentary ethics experts believe in fact that the

success of a code of conduct depends on whether the individuals who are supposed to be

regulated by the disposition of the code, have a common understanding of what are the

problems that the code is supposed to address or of how the code can solve those

problems. In other words, it is argued that the success of codes of conduct for

Parliamentarians requires homogenous ethical standards and expectations. On the basis of

a survey conducted among the members of the ethics council of the Indonesian DPD and

DPR, we show that values and preferences of Indonesian MPs are far from being

homogenous. Hence, we suggest that in order to make conduct codes successful in

Indonesia, it is necessary to homogenize the ethical standards, values and expectations of

Indonesian parliamentarians.

1

In the course of the paper we proceed as follows. In the first part of the paper, we

summarize how the institutional approach to the study of politics has evolved over the

years. Specifically we note that in contrast to classical institutionalist arguments, for

which political outcomes were somewhat mechanistically determined by institutional

arrangements, neo-institutional arguments underline that the relationship between

institutions and political outcome is conditional as it depends on a variety of conditions

such as actors’ constellation, political will or ideas. Building on this ideational variant of

neo-institutionalist arguments, we go on to say that ideational conditions are important

for the success of conduct codes. In fact, as the literature has repeatedly observed, the

success of conduct codes depends more on whether MPs have homogenous values,

preferences and expectations than on whether the code establish severe sanctions.

In the second part of the paper, we discuss the Indonesian case. In doing so, we

show that in spite of the Indonesian transition to democracy, Indonesia’s democracy is

not characterized by particularly high levels of good governance. On the basis of survey

data collected by Transparency International and the World Value Survey we show that

the Indonesian political system is perceived to be very corrupt and that Indonesian

citizens have very little trust in Indonesian institutions. We use this evidence to explain

why the DPR and the DPD have taken some steps, such as the adoption of ethics code,

and are willing to take some more steps, such as the adoption of a conduct code, to curb

corruption. We conclude this part of the paper by arguing that while enacting ethics

reforms is necessary, it may not be sufficient to promote good governance. If ideational

institutionalists are correct in saying that the success of conduct codes depends on

2

whether the ethical standards are homogenous (or not), then we need to know whether

this condition is satisfied (or not) in the Indonesian case.

In the third part of the paper we present the results of a survey conducted among

the members of the ethics council of the DPD and the DPR. The data analysis reveals that

there is a plurality of ethical standards among Indonesian parliamentarians and this may

represent an obstacle for the success of the ethics reforms.

In the conclusions, we suggest that in order to make ethics reforms succeed in

addition to adopting codes of conduct and similar institutional arrangements, it is also

necessary to homogenize the ethical standards and expectations of the Indonesian

parliamentarians.

Part I. Institutionalisms Long neglected in political science literature, institutions have received a considerable

amount of attention in the course of the past two decades. Rational choice scholars

(Tsebelis, 2003) view institutions as those mechanisms that translate individual

preferences (micro) into social equilibria (macro). Historical institutionalists (Steinmo et

alii, 1993) believe instead that institutions are not simply mechanisms for translating

individual preferences into social equilibria, but believe instead that institutions actually

contribute to the formation of individual preferences. The single most important factor

that contributed to the rediscovery of political institutions in general and of

constitutions/constitutional mechanisms in particular was the so called third wave of

democratization (Huntington, 1991). This wave confronted the political science

3

community with a basic question, namely what institutional/constitutional arrangements

are more likely to create the conditions for democratic consolidation? What institutional

and constitutional choices should be made to make these newly established democratic

regimes survive? In part because constitutions had to be written and institutions had to be

set up, in part because without institutions scholars working in the rational tradition did

not know how to explain equilibria and in part because institutions were seen as

constitutive elements of individual preferences, the past two decades have witnessed a

new, and growing interest in the study of political institutions. This has led to a

refinement of institutional arguments and analyses and to a pluralization/proliferation of

institutional approaches. Scholars have for example recognized that while political

outcomes are shaped by political institutions, institutions do not exist and operate in a

vacuum. Institutions function in a space which is populated by political actors, who have

specific ideas and values. Hence, new generations of studies in the neo-institutional

framework have emphasized the importance of actor constellations and/or ideas in

understanding institutional performance and change. In the first respect, neo-

institutionalists have argued that the impact of institutions on political outcomes is

conditional, which means that whether institutional potential of producing a specific

outcome is translated into effect or not depends on actor constellations. In the second

respect scholars working in this neo-institutionalist framework have investigated the

conditions under which institutional change occurs. In doing so, several scholars have

pointed out that the choice of institutions is often the result of an ideational struggle

(Blyth, 2002).

4

Ideas are not only important in explaining how institutions are chosen but also

whether and how institutions actually function. The case of ethics reforms is actually a

good case in point. Early studies were actually inscribed in classical institutionalist

framework, which postulates, somewhat mechanistically, that institutions shape actors

behavior. With regard to the success of ethics reforms and codes of conduct, this classical

institutionalist argument suggested that the adoption of conduct codes could contribute to

curbing corruption and other forms of misconduct because it established some more or

less severe sanctions for violations of the dispositions of the code. Hence, in this case, the

classical institutionalist argument took the following form:

Conduct code sanctions more ethical conduct The work by Willa Bruce (1996) has shown instead that there is very little

evidence supporting this classical institutionalist argument. First of all there is very little

evidence showing whether the adoption of a conduct code actually leads to a more ethical

behavior of the actors that the code is intended to regulate. Bruce showed, and this is our

second point, that the adoption of the code is related to lower levels of perceived

corruption and misconduct.

Studies on ethics reforms and on the conditions that make ethics reforms

successful, have provided more support for ideational or cultural institutionalist

arguments than for classical institutionalist arguments. Snape (2001) argued that

ineffectiveness of scrutiny often depends on the fact that there are different and

conflicting interpretations of what scrutiny should or should not be. Morgan (2005)

5

stressed conduct codes cannot be successfully adopted without paying proper attention to

the political culture of the individuals whom the code is supposed to regulate. Bruce

(2000) suggested that ethical behavior is affected by whether individuals are

religious/spiritual. If her argument could be extended to codes of conduct, one could

argue that compliance with the dispositions of a conduct code (and therefore the success

of the code itself) are significantly affected by whether the individuals regulated by the

code are religious/spiritual. These studies are fairly interesting for our present purposes.

In fact, in spite of the fact that the cultural factor is associated with respectively

interpretation, political culture or religiosity/spirituality, all these studies posit a link

between cultural conditions and institutional success (the success of the code in curbing

corruption and promoting good governance). This linkage was most forcefully suggested

in a study by Skelcher and Snape (2001). These scholars argued in fact that the success of

a conduct code requires the following cultural conditions: 1) the individuals to whom the

code is applied must have the same attitudes and values; 2) they must have a shared

understanding of what are the problems that the code is supposed to prevent and possibly

eliminate; 3) they must have a shared understanding of what the solutions for those

problems may be.

If these scholars are correct in positing a linkage between cultural and ideational

factors on the one hand institutional success on the other hand, what are the implications

for the Indonesian case? This is what we are going to discuss in the remainder of the

paper.

6

Part Two: Indonesia and its political context

After gaining independence in 1949, Indonesia failed to establish a lasting democratic

regime.1 Although in the early 1950s there was an initial momentum toward democratic

governance, authoritarian dynamics gradually prevailed over the fragile and young

Indonesian democracy, so that by the late 1950s Indonesian had become an authoritarian

regime under its first President Sukarno. The “non democratic, New Order regime” was

further consolidated under President Suharto in the mid-1960s. Having eliminated

former President Sukarno and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), Suharto

engineered the creation of Golkar, a pro-government political party formed based on

bureaucratic and military interests. During his 32 years in power, Suharto created a

patrimonial political system that rewarded his supporters, including family and friends,

punishing his opponents and the public at large by placing restrictions on civil liberties

where elections were held every 5 years. Indeed, scholars such as MacIntyre2 have

argued that the government had the authority to vet all political candidates standing for

elections, pressuring legislators to be very reluctant in exercising their right to amend or

block bills in parliament. Furthermore, keeping in mind the heavy bias towards the

executive, military officers were able to occupy up to 20% of the seats in parliament

(MacIntyre, 2001). 1 The Indonesian case is not exceptional in this regard. As Huntington (1991) many of the countries that democratized in the course of the second wave of democratization were unable to consolidate democracy, suffered democratic breakdowns contributing to what Huntington defined as ‘second reverse wave’. 2 Andrew MacIntyre, Investment Property Rights and Corruption in Indonesia Ateneo University Press, Manila, 2001. [http://apseg.anu.edu.au/pdf/macintyre_papers/Investme.pdf]

7

Given all this, it is not surprising that the Freedom House Index labels Indonesia

as a “Partially Free” democratic country for the 1972-1993 period. Indonesia was

categorized as a “Non Free” country in the years 1994-1998, when the country was hit by

the Asian Financial Crisis.3 Indonesia plunged into political and economic turmoil as

civil society realized the severity of corruption, collusion and nepotism that were

plaguing political institutions. Subsequently, Indonesia recovered its “Partially Free”

status in the 1998-2005 period. In fact, the quality of democracy in Indonesia has been

improving in the post Suharto era: Indonesia received at 3.5 score on the Gastil Index of

Freedom in the 2001-2005 period. This represents a vast improvement in the quality of

democracy: from 1974 to 1985 Indonesian democracy (or the lack thereof) never received

a score lower than 5 on the Gastil Index of Freedom.

Indonesia and Political Corruption Despite increasing political and economic stability in Indonesia, corruption (as well as

other forms of misconduct) remains the most serious problem in post-Suharto Indonesian

politics. Research by Transparency International, a leading global coalition against

corruption, sustains this claim. Transparency International computes on a yearly basis the

3 Freedom House computes an annual index of freedom for all the countries in the world. This index is computed in the following way. The Freedom House assigns to each country a political rights and a civil rights score. Both scores are 7-point scales. The Gastil index is measured by adding the political rights score to the civil rights score and by dividing their sum by two. This means that if a country has a political rights score of 3 and a civil rights score of 4, the freedom score for this country is (3+4)/2=3.5. Countries that score from 1 to 2.5 points on this scale are considered free; countries scoring from 3 to 5.5 are considered as partially free and countries with a score of 5.5 or higher belong to the group of non-free countries.

8

“Corruption Perception Index” (CPI henceforth) which measures the level of corruption

perceived in a given country by businessmen and country analysts.4

Table 1. Indonesia's CPI Performance (in 10 years)

Year Corruption Index Individual Rank Total No of Countries Percentile

2005 2.20 137 159 86.16% 2004 2.00 133 146 91.10% 2003 1.90 122 133 91.73% 2002 1.90 96 102 94.12% 2001 1.90 88 91 96.70% 2000 1.70 85 90 94.44% 1999 1.70 96 99 96.97% 1998 2.00 80 85 94.12% 1997 2.70 46 52 88.46% 1996 2.65 45 54 83.33% 1995 1.94 41 41 100.00%

Source: Transparency International, 1995-2005.

The data collected by Transparency International are presented in table 1. The data reveal

that Indonesia is consistently perceived to be a very corrupt society. In fact, the CPI for

Indonesia has never been higher than 3. A simple comparison allows us to understand

what it means having such a low score. Regardless of the number of countries being

sampled worldwide, Indonesia has always ranked among the most corrupt societies in the

world. Leaving aside 1995 when Indonesia was perceived to be the single most corrupt of

the 41 polities for which data had been collected, Indonesia is consistently viewed as a

more corrupt than most societies. In seven years out of ten in the 1996-2005 period

Indonesia was at least in the 90th percentile while in the other three years it was at least in

the 80th. This means that in the years in which Indonesia was perceived to do better in

comparative term, it was still regarded as more corrupt than 80 percent of the countries

4 The CPI is measured on a 10-point scale between where 0 indicates highly corrupt and where 10 indicates instead highly clean, see [http://ww1.transparency.org/].

9

for which Transparency International was collecting data. In the years in which Indonesia

was perceived to do worse in comparative terms, Indonesia was perceived to more

corrupt than 90 percent of the countries covered by Transparency International. Of course

one should keep in mind that the CPI estimated by Transparency International does not

really measure objective corruption, it provides an indication of how much corruption is

perceived to exist in a country and as such they do not provide the best possible ground

for making cross-country comparisons. Yet, these data all point in the same direction,

namely that Indonesia is perceived to be very corrupt, that corruption represents a major

problem in Indonesian politics in and by itself, and that corruption may be problematic as

it is associated with falling levels of trust.5 In sum, corruption is perceived to be a serious

problem in Indonesia and this is why it is so important to take some steps to curb and

possibly eliminate corruption (along with other forms of misconduct).

Transparency International developed another important tool (the Corruption

Barometer) to assess the severity of corruption within institutions and its impact on the

level of trust citizens have in these institutions.6 The list of institutions includes

parliaments, political parties, the military and judiciary. In 36 out of 62 countries

surveyed, political parties were rated by the general public as the institution most affected

by corruption; but Indonesia’s civil society sentiments differed from this findings.

5 We will elaborate this point in greater detail later on in the paper. 6 Respondents were asked to rank on a five point scale the extent to which they perceived various institutional sectors to be affected by corruption.

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Table 2. to what extent do you perceive this institution to be affected by corruption? Institutions Perception of Corruption Political Parties 4.4 Parliament/ Legislature 4.4 Legal system/ Judiciary 4.2 Police 4.2 Business/ private sector 3.7 Tax revenue 4 Customs 4.3 Media 2.6 Medical services 3 Education system 3.2 Registry and permit services 3.7 Utilities 3.1 Military 3.3 NGOs 2.4 Religious bodies 1.8 Source: Transparency International, 1995-2005. Note: scale 1 (not at all corrupt) to 5 (extremely corrupt).

According to the Corruption Barometer 2004, respondents in Indonesia rated their

parliaments and legislatures to be the most corrupt institution (along with, of course,

political parties).

Indonesia institutions are perceived to be highly corrupt and, not surprisingly,

enjoy low levels of trust. The fourth wave of the World Values Survey conducted in

1998-2001 revealed that Indonesians generally have very little confidence in all types of

national institutions. Data are presented in Table 3.7

7 World Values Survey contains the work of social scientists worldwide who desire to produce evidence that there are gradual but pervasive changes occurring in each country’s society that its citizens want out of life. There have been four waves of survey analysis, and Indonesia was only sampled on the fourth wave in 2001. [http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/organization/index.html]

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Table 3. World Values Survey: Indonesia's level of confidence in different institutions and organizations Organization/Institution A Great Deal Quite a lot Not very much Not at all Churches 75 21.7 2.8 0.4 Armed Forces 16.6 57.3 24.1 1.9 The Press 5.8 49.1 42.7 2.4 Labour Unions 4.5 33.4 55.3 6.8 The Police 9 43 43.4 4.6 Parliament 3.2 39.8 49.6 7.4 The Civil Services 8.5 50.9 36.9 3.7 Television 9.1 52.2 36.8 1.9 The Government 9.4 43 42.9 4.8 The Political Parties 3.9 29.2 57 9.9 Major Companies 6.3 40.7 47.2 5.9 The environmental protection movement 9.9 44.9 40.4 4.7 The Women's Movement 6.8 43.9 42.6 6.8 UN 10.3 37.7 40.7 11.3 ASEAN 9 44 39.6 7.3 Source: Source: World Values Survey, 1981-2004 (Country: Indonesia, 2001). Note: Rank Scale (1: A great deal, 4:Not at all).

About a thousand respondents were interviewed in Indonesia by the World Value Survey.

Respondents were asked to express on a 4 point scale - from 1 (great deal of confidence)

to 4 (none at all)- how much confidence they had in 15 private, public and regional

institutions. Since Indonesia was slowly recovering from the Asian Financial Crisis and

was struggling to consolidate its new form of “democracy” after the Suharto years in

2001, it comes as no surprise that the Indonesian respondents were still wary of such

large institutions that were still regarded as both inefficient and corrupt. To sum up, what

we have said so far suggests three basic conclusions, namely that :

1) Indonesia has consistently been perceived to be highly corrupt and to be one of

the most corrupt countries in the world;

2) The parliament (along with parties) is perceived to be the most corrupt institution

in Indonesia; and

3) The Parliament is one of the three least trusted institutions in Indonesia.

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One solution to regain citizens’ trust consists in enacting ethics reforms and creating

ethics regime. This means that a political system which is (or is at least perceived to be)

corrupt implements some institutional reforms to reduce corruption and regain the trust of

the citizens. This is why ethics reforms and the creation of ethics regimes are said to

perform both an internal as well as an external function.8

The creation of ethics regimes, as discussed in the scholarly literature, can occur

by either adopting ethics codes, or by adopting conduct codes.9 Ethics codes state what

are the main ethical values and principles of an organization, but they have no bite. By

contrast, conduct codes are remarkably more specific. They clearly indicate which forms

of conduct represents acceptable conduct and they also indicate which types of conduct

are to be regarded as improper. Moreover, codes of conduct differ from ethics codes in a

second respect: codes of conduct establish sanctions for punishing violations of the

provisions of the code.

Given the persistently high levels of perceived corruption and the low levels of

trust in institution, the Indonesian legislature was forced to take some steps in order to

curb corruption, to show its commitment to the principles and the values of good

governance and to regain the trust of its citizens. The Indonesian parliament tried to do so

by enacting some ethics reforms. The DPR (lower house) adopted a code of ethics on

September 29, 2004 and it is considering whether and to what extent it would be

advisable to couple the adoption of the ethics code with the adoption of a conduct code. 8 Rick Stapenhurst and Riccardo Pelizzo, “Legislative Ethics and Codes of Conduct”, WBI Working Paper, Series in Contemporary Parliamentary Development, Washington DC, 2004, p. 5. A revised version of this paper can be found in Rick Stapenhurst, Niall Johnston and Riccardo Pelizzo (eds.), The Role of Parliaments in Curbing Corruption, Washington DC, The World Bank, 2006, pp. 195-203. 9 Gianfranco Pasquino and Riccardo Pelizzo, Parlamenti Democratici, Bologna, il Mulino, 2006, ch. 6.

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The DPD has already taken a more entrepreneurial approach with regard to the adoption

of a conduct code. In fact, in spite of the fact that the ethics council of the DPD does not

have the constitutional mandate to draft legislation, the ethics council has already

prepared a draft of a code of conduct to manifest its commitment to ethics reforms and

good governance.

While the steps taken by the ethics council of the DPD and the DPR are

encouraging as they show these institutions’ commitment to adopting a code of conduct,

improving governance and fighting corruption, it is worth keeping in mind that the

process of institutional reform is not an easy one. In discussing which dispositions should

be included in the code of conduct the members of the ethics council of both the DPD

and the DPR have manifested some skepticism as to the adoption of rules forcing

members to either disclose or register their interests. In addition to this one should note

that the members of the ethics council of DPD who are mostly businesspeople or

entrepreneurs of some sort, strongly oppose the adoption of regulations that may force

them to give up their job in the private sector while they serve their term in office.

Personal conversations between one of the authors of this paper and the members of

ethics council in the DPR and the DPD revealed that while members are in favor of

adopting the code, they may oppose the adoption of gifts and travel restrictions that are

key component of any code of conduct. Hence, we believe that the adoption of a code of

conduct is confronted with the following conundrum: if the dispositions of the code are

too stringent (no gift, disclosure of interests, job restrictions), members may oppose the

adoption of such a code; conversely if the dispositions of the code have no bite,

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regardless of how much support they may receive from MPs, they will not be able to

significantly affect the ethical behavior of Indonesian legislators.

Be that as it may, given the interest demonstrated both by the members of the

DPD and the DPR in institutional reforms, ethics regimes and codes of conduct, we

administered a survey to the members of the ethics council of the DPD and the DPR. We

conducted this survey to assess whether and to what extent Indonesian MPs have

homogenous ethical standards –which is what is required to make conduct codes succeed-

or not. The results of our survey will be presented and discussed in the next part of the

paper.

Part Three: Analysis of Survey Data

In order to examine sentiments towards corruption of the members of the DPD and the

DPR we conducted a survey on “General Sentiments on Corruption”.10 In this survey we

used a questionnaire that had originally been devised by Mancuso (1993; 1995) to

investigate the ethical world of British MPs. We decided to use this questionnaire for two

reasons. The first reason is that we believe that such a questionnaire allows the analyst to

gain some insight into the ethical values and preferences of parliamentarians. The second

reasons is that by adopting Mancuso’ s questionnaire, we are able to generate that may be

used for cross-country comparisons which, we believe, may help shed some light into the

10 The survey of the member of the ethics council of the DPR was administered in the course of a workshop on parliamentary ethics and codes of conduct organized by the National Democratic Institute. The survey was administered to the members of the ethics council of the DPD by Indraneel Datta of IDEA. We wish to thank IDEA, NDI, Indraneel Datta and Tom Cormier for all their help and support. We wish to thank Rick Stapenhurst who made all this possible.

15

ethical standards of parliamentarians and into how these standards may determine the

success or the failure of ethics reforms.

Be that as it may, in this part of the survey (six questions), respondents were

required to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement to each of the six

statements, ranging on a 7 point scale from 1 (Strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree).

Table 4. General Statements on Corruption

Strongly Agree Neutral

Strongly disagree

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mean Political Corruption a widespread problem

40.7 7.4 7.4 22.2 7.4 7.4 7.4 3

People don't trust politicians as they don't understand politics

14.8 0.0 29.6 18.5 22.2 0.0 14.8 3.93

Dishonesty more widespread in politics than in business

40.7 14.8 11.1 14.8 7.4 7.4 3.7 2.7

Corruption more widespread at local than national level

14.8 0.0 0.0 33.3 14.8 22.2 14.8 4.59

No matter what we do, corruption can never be eliminated

18.5 0.0 7.4 18.5 0.0 18.5 37 4.85

Corruption reflects standard of society 29.6 18.5 14.8 18.5 0.0 3.7 14.8 3.11

Indonesian parliamentarians believe that corruption can be eliminated, that is

more widespread at the national than at the local level, that politicians are more corrupt

than business people, that corruption reflects a society’s ethical standards, and that

corruption is indeed a major problem in Indonesia. Given these answers one could note

that if corruption is a problem that can be solved and if corruption reflects a society’s

standards, then political elites in Indonesia in addition to implementing ethics reforms

should also take some steps to educate the public and to modify/improve society’s ethical

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preferences and values. But we need to make a second and more important remark,

namely that the data analysis reveals that the ethical standards among the member of the

ethics council in the DPD and in the DPR are not homogenous. Most of the respondents

view political corruption as a widespread problem and agree dishonesty is more common

in politics than in business, but the agreement on these issues is far from being

unanimous.

The answers, as we mentioned earlier on in the paper, are given on a seven-point

scale. Value 1 indicates strong agreement, value 7 indicates strong disagreement and

value 4 indicates that a respondent is neutral about a given issue. To assess how much

disagreement there is on the six issues on which respondents were asked to express their

views, we proceed as follows. We discount all the answers in the neutral category, we

add up all the answers indicating agreement (however strong), and we ad all the answers

indicating disagreement (however strong). By doing so, we find that there is some

disagreement on most issues and that on some issues disagreement is quite pervasive.

About 55 percent of the respondents agree that political corruption is widespread,

but more than 22 percent of them disagrees with that view. About 44 percent of the

respondents agree that the reason why voters do not trust politicians is that they do not

understand politics, but this view is opposed by 37 percent of the respondents. In other

words, members of the ethics council in the DPD and in the DPR are almost evenly split

on this issue. About 65 percent of the respondents agree that dishonesty is more

widespread in politics than in business, but 18 percent of them actually disagrees. About

70 percent of the respondents regard hiring the wife or a relative as personal secretary as

17

a corrupt action, while this behavior is regard as perfectly legitimate by more than 20

percent of the respondents.11

For more than 50 percent of the respondents corruption is more common at the

national level, while almost 15 percent of the respondents holds the opposite view.

Opinions differ also as to whether corruption can be eliminated. In fact, while 55.5

percent of the respondents believe that corruption can be eliminated, about 26 percent of

the respondents holds the opposite view.

Table 5. Polarization of views on General Statements of Corruption

Strongly

Agree Neutral Strongly disagree Polarization

1 4 7 [1+7]-4

Political Corruption a widespread problem

40.7 22.2 7.4 25.9

People don't trust politicians as they don't understand politics

14.8 18.5 14.8 11.1

Dishonesty more widespread in politics than in business

40.7 14.8 3.7 29.6

Corruption more widespread at local than national level

14.8 33.3 14.8 -3.7

No matter what we do, corruption can never be eliminated

18.5 18.5 37 37

Corruption reflects standard of society

29.6 18.5 14.8 25.9

To further examine the opinions of the respondents, we calculated the degree of

polarization possibly arising towards these six statements. Building upon the work of

Sartori (1976), Pelizzo and Babones (2003) constructed the Pelizzo-Babones index of

polarization. They defined polarization as the total spread of opinion suggested that

polarization can be measured by the following formula:

11 As a point of comparison, one could observe that hiring relatives to serve as personal secretaries is a fairly common practice among Italian members of the European Parliament.

18

[(extreme left + extreme right) – centre]

This definition of polarization can be used to assess the amount of disagreement on ethics

issue within the Indonesian council of ethics. The Pelizzo-Babones index of polarization

can be used in this paper by adding the percentage of the responses located at the two

extremes of the scale and by subtracting the number of neutral responses from the total of

extreme responses, that is:

[{strongly agree + strongly disagree} – neutral]

By applying this simple formula to the data presented in Table 4, we are able to establish

the polarization of respondents’ views towards general statements of corruption as shown

in Table 5. From these computations, we find that polarization of views among

parliamentarians ranges from 11 to 37 percent for only five issues. The fourth scenario

stating that “corruption is more widespread at local than national level” was proven to be

one of the least contentious issues among respondents regarding this survey, with a score

of -3.7percent on the polarization index. The highest level of polarization, and , therefore,

the greatest amount of disagreement, was recorded on whether corruption can or cannot

be eliminated. The second most contentious item was whether dishonesty is more

common in politics or in business Respondents were equally polarized as to whether

political corruption is a widespread phenomenon and as to whether corruption reflects

the ethical standards of a society. The polarization in each of these four scenarios was

higher than 25 percent. These results suggest that the ethical attitudes and perspectives of

Indonesian parliamentarians are far from homogenous. Without a homogenous set of

ethical perspectives and values, it is very difficult to make conduct codes succeed in the

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long term. In order to ensure such success, the ethical standards of Indonesian

parliamentarians must be homogenized, reducing possible polarization of opinions on

ethical issues.

In order to properly assess how homogenous were the ethical standards of the

Indonesian MPs, respondents were also provided with 10 corruption scenarios and were

asked to rank each of these scenarios on a 7 point scale where 1 meant corrupt and 7

meant non corrupt.

Data analysis reveals that 8 of the 10 scenarios were considered as corrupt

scenarios by the respondents, who however regarded accepting cigars from wealthy

constituents and arranging meetings between MPs and businessmen as non-corrupt

practices.

The data analysis also reveals that there is a quite a bit of disagreement among

MPs as to how various activities should be judged. For example, while about 40 percent

of the respondents regarded arranging meeting between MPs and businessmen as corrupt,

about 44 percent of the respondents considered this practice as non corrupt. Accepting

cigars was viewed as a corrupt behavior by about 25 percent of the respondents, while it

was treated as non corrupt by 44 percent of the respondents. Yet, these scenarios are not

clear cut cases of corruption. What is truly surprising is the fact that for some MPs

promising appointments in exchange for campaign contributions, using influence to get a

friend a job, awarding a contract to a company which had made a major campaign

contribution are not unanimously viewed as corrupt practices. For 16 percent of the

respondents promising an appointment position in exchange of campaign contribution did

20

not represent a clear cut case of corruption. For 15 percent of the respondents using

influence to get a friend a job does not represent a corrupt behavior. Even more

surprisingly 3.7 of the respondents did not regard awarding a public contract to a

company that had made major donations to party finance as a corrupt action.

Table 6. Corruption Scenarios Very

corrupt Neutral No

corrupt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mean Cabinet minister promises appointment position exchange for campaign contribution

42.3 11.5 30.8 7.7 0.0 3.8 3.8 2.38

MP using influence to get friend/relative admitted to prestigious institution

40.7 22.2 18.5 11.1 3.7 3.7 0.0 2.26

MP using influence to get friend/relative a job 33.3 22.2 29.6 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 2.48

Cabinet minister use influence to obtain contract for firm in his constituency

44.4 18.5 14.8 11.1 3.7 3.7 3.7 2.37

MP arrange for meetings between private corporation executives and parliamentarians

11.1 11.1 18.5 14.8 0.0 11.1 33.3 4.48

MP hires wife or family member to serve as his secretary

40.7 22.2 7.4 7.4 11.1 0.0 11.1 2.7

MP accepts a box of cigars from influential constituent 7.4 11.1 7.4 29.6 3.7 11.1 29.6 4.63

Major company makes big donation to government party, eventually won major contract

70.4 22.2 3.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.7 1.52

MP exchange 1st class ticket allocated for economy class, pockets the difference

42.3 15.4 7.7 15.4 7.7 0.0 11.5 2.77

MP gets house pass for lobbyist to act as research assistant whose services paid for by external source

44 24 4 20 4 4 0.0 2.28

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Table 7. Polarization of views on Corruption Scenarios Very

corrupt Neutral Not corrupt Polarization

1 4 7 [1+7]-4 Cabinet minister promises appointment position exchange for campaign contribution

42.3 7.7 3.8 38.4

MP using influence to get friend/relative admitted to prestigious institution

40.7 11.1 0.0 29.6

MP using influence to get friend/relative a job

33.3 3.7 3.7 33.3

Cabinet minister use influence to obtain contract for firm in his constituency

44.4 11.1 3.7 37

MP arrange for meetings between private corporation executives and parliamentarians

11.1 14.8 33.3 29.6

MP hires wife or family member to serve as his secretary

40.7 7.4 11.1 44.4

MP accepts a box of cigars from influential constituent

7.4 29.6 29.6 7.4

Major company makes big donation to government party, eventually won major contract

70.4 0.0 3.7 74.1

MP exchange 1st class ticket allocated for economy class, pockets the difference

42.3 15.4 11.5 38.4

MP gets house pass for lobbyist to act as research assistant whose services paid for by external source

44 20 0.0 24

Once again, by applying the Pelizzo-Babones index of polarization 12 index to the

data presented in Table 6, we are able to analyze the polarization of Indonesian

parliamentarians’ responses towards various corruption scenarios. On close analysis of

the computations reflected in Table 7, the spectrum of polarization ranges from a

minimum of about 7 percent to a maximum of about 74 percent. Indeed, the wide range

12 The Polarization Index: [(extreme left + extreme right) – centre], on this index see Pelizzo and Babones (2003) as well as Pelizzo and Babones (2006).

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of parliamentarians’ perceptions and opinions towards these scenarios shows, alarmingly,

the lack of general consensus among Indonesian MPs on ethical issues. This analysis,

coupled with our findings presented in Table 5, sustains the claim that Indonesian MPs

have a multiplicity of ethical standards.

If Snape and Skelcher are correct in saying that the success of conduct codes

depends, among other reason, on whether there are homogenous ethical standards, that

MP agree on what are the problems that the code should solve, and on what dispositions

should be put in the code to address those problems, the data that we have presented

clearly indicate that these conditions are not met in the Indonesian case.

Conclusions

The purpose of the paper was to discuss the problems and perspectives concerning the

adoption of ethics reforms in Indonesia. In doing so, we have argued that while political

scientists believe that political outcomes are affected by political institutions, they

indicate that the relationship between institutions and political outcomes is conditional.

Institutions’ ability to produce a certain outcome depends on a variety of conditions such

as political will, actors’ constellations, as well as ideational factors.

Scholars working on legislative and conduct codes have pointed out that this logic

applies also to conduct codes and ethics reforms. Conduct codes and ethics reforms are

able to produce the expected results (to curb corrupt, to eliminate misconduct, to promote

good governance, and so on) provided that certain ideational conditions are met. In this

respect, Skelcher and Snape (2001) noted that the success of the codes depends on

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whether the individuals that the code is supposed to regulate have common values, have a

common understanding of the problems that the code is intended to solve, and have a

common understanding of what measures can be adopted to fix those problems.

Given the high level of perceived corruption in Indonesia and the lack of trust in

the parliament, Indonesian politicians are doing exactly what they are supposed to do:

they have tried and they are trying to enact ethics reforms to show their commitment to

the principles of good governance, to curb corruption and to regain citizens’ trust. In

order to do so, the DPR adopted an ethics code in 2004 and now both the DPD and the

DPR are trying to adopt a conduct code to regulate the behavior of their members. This

obviously represents a step in the right direction. Conduct codes have a greater power to

regulate the behavior of parliamentarians than ethics codes. Codes of conduct are

prescriptive rather than aspirational (Stapenhurst and Pelizzo, 2004; Pelizzo and

Stapenhurst, 2006:195-203; Pasquino and Pelizzo, 2006), as in addition to stating the

ethical principles and values of the institution, they provide clear guidance to the

members and establishes sanctions for the violations of the code itself.

This said, it is important to keep in mind that the function of a conduct code is not

to punish wrong-doers, but it is to prevent corruption and other forms of misconduct.

Hence, ideational factors, such as the fact that MPs have a common value system, are

more important than sanctions.

The survey data that we have analyzed and discussed in the paper clearly show

that the ethical views of Indonesian legislators are not homogenous. There is quite a bit of

disagreement among Indonesian legislators as to how widespread corruption is, as to

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what represent corruption and so on. Hence, while discussing the adoption of (and

adopting) a code of conduct may prove extremely useful to curb corruption, and restore

citizens’ trust in the Indonesian legislature, it is by itself insufficient. In drafting the code

or, better, before drafting the code, Indonesian legislators should discuss what factors are

responsible for not so good governance, what are the main problems plaguing the

Indonesian political system, which of these problems can and should be addressed by the

code, how specific the dispositions of the code should be, and how these dispositions can

help Indonesia achieve better governance.

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